‘Lavish’ is related to ‘Austere’ in the same way as ‘Prejudiced’ is related to ‘________’. (The words must be considered as meaningful English words and must not be related to each other based on the number of letters/number of consonants/vowels in the word.)

Correct — A. Rule: the given pair is an antonym pair, so the blank needs the opposite of the word before it.

Lavish means extravagant, spending or giving without restraint. Austere means severely plain and self-denying. Opposites, not shades of one idea.

Prejudiced means holding a preformed, one-sided judgement. Its direct opposite is impartial — judging without leaning either way.

Lavish : Austere reads across to Prejudiced : Impartial, option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Compromised — Compromised means weakened, or having conceded something under pressure. A compromised judgement may well be a biased one, so the word sits on the same side as prejudiced rather than opposite it.
• (c)
  Careful — Careful is the opposite of careless, not of prejudiced. A careful person can still be prejudiced, so this reverses attentiveness rather than bias.
• (d)
  Thoughtful — Thoughtful opposes thoughtless or inconsiderate. It speaks to how much reflection went into a judgement, not to whether that judgement leans to one side.

Word analogies turn on the relation first and the words second. Fix the relation from the pair you are given, name it in one word — synonym, antonym, degree, part-to-whole, worker-to-tool — then find the option that repeats it.

Lavish and austere are opposites on the axis of spending and restraint, which sets the relation as antonymy. Every option is then tested as an antonym of prejudiced, not as a word that merely feels unlike it.

The near-misses negate the wrong feature. Prejudiced carries two ideas, a judgement and a bias, and an antonym must reverse the bias.

Key facts

• Lavish means extravagant or unrestrained and austere means severely plain, so the given pair is an antonym pair.
• Prejudiced means holding a one-sided preformed judgement, and its antonym is impartial.
• Careful opposes careless and thoughtful opposes thoughtless, neither of which is the axis prejudiced sits on.

Common traps

• Fixing on the second word's tone instead of the relation the given pair defines
• Choosing a word that negates a different feature of prejudiced, such as its carelessness
• Testing options against prejudiced before naming the relation as antonymy

No directly related past PYQ was found.